CHAPTER III 



THE CONSERVATION OF SOU. MOISTURE 



THE most important problem in dry- 

 farming, as already stated, is un- 

 questionably that which deals with the 

 conservation of soil moisture. Hardly a 

 season passes but we hear of crops which 

 have failed because of lack of rain; and 

 this complaint is, unfortunately, not con- 

 fined to any one particular district, but is 

 more or less common to all parts of the 

 West. "How can we control and con- 

 serve the soil moisture so as to save our 

 crops in time of drought?" 



Soil Water. 



Now, in order to answer this question, 

 we must first understand how the soil 

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